HUGE SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN 3 EPISODE 3, TURN BACK YE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN!
BACK!
OUT!
LAST WARNING!
The Toll of the Bell
His lifeblood drains upon the cobblestones.
As Danas' murderer blocks the moonlight.
"Sir Bertrand Bell, eh? Good-night." the fiend mocks.
He struggles to raise his head, and over the shoulder of this being, he catches sight of another figure.
Tall.
Lithe.
Raven Feathers blowing in the wind.
As his vision darkens and blurs, he mumbles, feeling blood pooling on his tongue and lips.
"Lieve'tel."
"Not quite." a soft voice remarks as he feels a hand grasp his and pull him to his feet.
Bertrand's eyes blink back open, taking in the countenance of a masked Half-Elven man with massive black wings. The mask is raven-like in countenance, and the pale chin of this man holds the faintest of smiles.
"Who-" he pauses, looking down and stopping as he looks down at his hand.
Tanned skin, missing most of the brushes of age. His knees barely ache. He feels more whole than he has in years.
"What?" he asks, partially elated, "What has happened? Who are you?"
"A guide." the figure remarks, stepping around him slightly and looking at the ground, "And a return to top form."
"A guide?" Bertrand asks, turning to face his cryptic savior, scanning for his attacker and seeing them nowhere to be found, "To where?"
"The next adventure." the figure offers, his lip quirking upward just a tad.
"The next?" Bertrand scoffs, "No I…."
He freezes, and the weight of the ages comes crashing back down on him as he sees his own body splayed across the cobblestones.
"...had just gotten back on the wagon." he finishes softly, finding a deep chill pass across him, followed by indignant anger.
"This was to be a new beginning!" he cries, pointing an accusing finger at the winged man, who turns to him solemnly.
"This isn't…" he begins, the other man cutting him off.
"Fair?" the man finishes, tilting their head, "Very rare is the person who can claim that word in death...or life."
The air around them shimmers, seven mirrors snapping to life, transporting them somewhere far afield.
Bertrand looks around, his anger faltering with each shifting image.
Imogen, collapsing to her knees in a field as an unnatural storm of red-lightning and screaming wind overtakes her. She clutches her head as her skin cracks open, glowing with an odd light.
A gallows-tree, Darkness, Whispers, Laudna pulling herself out of a shallow grave, looking at her own hands in shock.
Ashton, barely breathing, the hole in his head fresh and raw, laying on the ground as someone frantically moves nearby. Molten glass pours, and they scream.
The little automaton slowly rising from their seated position to stare at the ruined forms of their friends.
Dorian seated at a fountain, staring at the ground as a spidery shadow with glimmering red eyes towers above him, hands clutching his shoulders.
Fearne looks into the face of a doppelganger, who burns from within and laughs in her face.
Orym standing on a cliff, alone, resting a hand on a grave-marker, tears leaking down the sides of his face.
He turns back to Imogen, and he almost swears that she is looking right at him, a look of fear and shock on her face.
"You lived a good life, Bell. One of heroism and folly." the figure states, "But you lived longer and less foolishly than many that walked your path."
Their voice takes on an interesting tone, almost self-deprecating.
"I was always more of a coward than a fool," Bertrand mutters, looking at the saddened and shocked faces of his new, now final companions.
"Perhaps." the figure mutters, placing a cold but comforting hand on his shoulder.
"Will they be okay without...?" Bertrand asks and then scoffs, "What am I saying. They didn't need me."
The figure shakes his head, the mirrors pushing back to reveal a vast dark room set with stars and a staircase leading into a distant white door.
Seven stars flout down and spin around the pair.
"You were lucky to find them." the man states, lines tracing between the orbiting stars, "You said so yourself. Yet, you carved their path in meeting them."
The threads unite, glimmering orbs tied into a seven-pointed star.
"Your thread has come to its end." the man states, "And while their's were fated to intertwine, you have made that bond adamant."
The thread and lights flare silver, and briefly, he sees them all seated around the table just hours before, eating cake and relaxing under the careful eye of Lord Eshteross.
"A new story, a fine last work." the man states.
"You sound like her," Bertrand remarks, his mind traveling to Lieve'tel once more.
"We are cut of the same cloth she and I." the man states.
"I never got to…" he pauses, rubbing his chin, thinking of the myriad of things he could have told her, should have told her.
"She knows." the man states softly.
Bertrand looks up at him, and that point of familiarity grows, not Lieve'tel but something else at the base of his memory.
"You are jarringly familiar," he remarks with a chuckle, "Do I know you?"
The man turns towards the staircase with a beckoning hand, "There is quite a story there."
"Really?" Bertrand asks, following him, "Can I hear it? Do we have the time?"
The figure stops, drawing his mask back as he reaches up and adjusts the Vox Machina pin on his lapel.
"What is time between two dead Legends, Mr. Bell?" Vax'ildan returns, with a wide smile, passing through the door.
Bertrand grins.
And takes his last step.
And his first.
Rest in peace Sir Bertrand Bell, a little-known legend to us, but what a legend indeed!
A little bit of headcanon in this piece, as it goes.
I hope you all enjoyed it.
Comments, critiques, and questions are always welcome.
This is VerBeeker, signing off.